Blum - PHP, MySQL & Javascript all-in-one for dummies

PHP, MySQL & JavaScript All-in-One For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933793

ISBN 978-1-119-46838-7 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-46833-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-46837-0 (ebk)

The Internet has become an amazing place to shop, do your banking, look up homework assignments, and even keep track of your bowling league scores. Behind all those great applications are a bunch of different web technologies that must all work together to create the web experience you come to expect.

You may think that creating web applications is best left for the professionals, but youd be surprised by just how well you can do with just a little knowledge and experience! Thats the point of this book.

Think of this book as a reference book. Like the dictionary or an encyclopedia (remember those?), you dont have to read it from beginning to end. Instead, you can dip into the book to find the information you need and return to it again when you need more. That said, you wont be disappointed if you work through the book from beginning to end, and you may find it easier to follow along with some of the examples.

In this book, I walk you through all the different technologies involved with creating dynamic web applications that can track data and present it in an orderly and pleasing manner. I cover several key topics that youll need to know to create a full-featured, dynamic web application:

• Creating the basic layout of a web page: In this book, you see the program code behind placing content on a web page and reacting to your website visitors mouse clicks.
• Styling the web page: Just placing data on a web page is boring. In this book, you learn how to use CSS to help use color, images, and placement to help liven up your web applications.
• Adding dynamic features: These days, having a static web page that just sits there doesnt get you many followers. This book shows you how to incorporate JavaScript to animate your web pages and provide dynamic features.
• Leveraging the power of the server: The PHP programming language allows you to harness the power behind the web server to dynamically generate web pages on the fly as your website visitors make choices.
• Storing data for the future: Just about every dynamic web application needs to store data, and in this book you learn exactly how to do that using the MySQL server, which is commonly available in just about every web platform.
• Creating full applications: Many books throw a bunch of technology at you and expect you to put the pieces together yourself. This book not only shows you the technology, but also demonstrates how all the parts fit together to create a dynamic web application.
• Using helper programs: No one is an island; everyone needs some help putting together those fancy web applications. There are plenty of tools to help you get the job done, and with this book you find out which tools will help you with which features of your application.

Throughout this book you see sidebars (text in gray boxes) and material marked with the Technical Stuff icon. All of these things are skippable. If you have time and are interested, by all means read them, but if you dont or arent, dont.

Finally, within this book, you may note that some web addresses break across two lines of text. If youre reading this book in print and want to visit one of these web pages, simply key in the web address exactly as its noted in the text, pretending as though the line break doesnt exist. If youre reading this as an e-book, youve got it easy just click the web address to be taken directly to the web page.

You dont need any level of programming experience to enjoy this book and start creating your own web applications. Each chapter walks through all the basics you need to know and doesnt assume youve ever coded before. As long as youre reasonably comfortable navigating your way around a standard desktop computer, you have all the experience you need!